Well, hopefully by now you have seen on Facebook or Twitter that we did indeed have a big night at the Parade of Homes Banquet on April 11th. But just in case you didn’t know, our Parade Home entry won several awards including the coveted BEST of the BEST Award.

Trying not to brag too much, but we won so many awards that night we asked our Realtor, Katherine Ray, to come up with us for the picture to help hold some awards. (I am the one in the yellow jacket.) We were pretty excited, to say the least. Here’s the breakdown:

The home itself won Gold (each home was judged on certain criteria, so we scored enough points to win Gold)

The home then won Platinum for it’s price category (had the highest score for all homes in our price category)

We won the Special Feature Award for our Custom Pantry Cabinet (picture is below)

We won BEST of the BEST (scored the highest out of ALL homes in the Parade)

And the home is SOLD, which is an award in itself.

Winning Awards is always an honor we don’t take lightly. There were many winners that night and I feel privledged to be a part of the Johnston County Building Industry and the Parade of Homes. I have been visiting Parade Homes for over 15 years all over the state and I can honestly say I think Johnston County, in comparison, has some of the finest quality custom home builders, neighborhoods, and amenities as any other county I have visited. You can personally view 20 beautiful homes in one day of touring within a five mile radius. “Parading” is a great way to see the area’s finest builders or simply to get ideas for your own home. You can go straight to the JC Parade of Homes website , download the app, or simply grab a book in any of the home entries. We still have two weekends of open houses left, Saturdays and Sundays 12pm-5pm. Hope you can come by and tour our home located at 28 Donatella Drive, Clayton, NC 27527. But if you can’t make it or want a sneak peak check out our Virtual Tour.

When we submit our home as a Parade of Homes entry, we are asked to also submit what we feel is the Best Feature of the Home. I found it difficult to pick just one special feature. Neil and I disagreed on what we thought we should submit. As we were talking through our opinions, Neil suggested I have my blog readers chose. I loved the idea but unfortunately I had to submit it weeks ago so didn’t have time to run with the idea. But in the spirit on that concept, I created a “voting” table in the home. I have set up several glass jars labeled with 8 different possible Best Feature candidates. Once you tour the home, chose a colored stone and put in the glass jar of your favorite feature.

Based on the first day of open house last weekend, the clear forerunner was the feature Neil wanted to submit. So many people voted for that feature, by Sunday, I had to get a bigger jar to hold all the stones. But thankfully, the special feature that I did submit, won anyway.

After personally talking with visitors this past weekend I realized men, women, and children were all voting for different things. I found it interesting to hear what different ages and gender liked the most and why. So this weekend I have decided to change it up a bit. I have purchased two different colored stones- Blue for the men and Pink for the ladies. This will now give me a clearer understanding of the differences in how the men verses women vote.

I love manning the home myself because it gives me the chance to hear peoples’ comments about what they like or what they would do different if it were their home. I learn so much and appreciate the compliments and suggestions.

Since we have two more weekends of Open House, I will hold the final voting results til then. But for now, if you haven’t had the chance to vote in the house, you can vote on the blog or Facebook. Here are the options:

Custom Pantry Cabinet: This is the one I submitted and we actually won. I love it because Bryant Herring created it from my sketch. I didn’t know how it was going to turn out but it turned out absolutely beautiful and is such a great use of space.

Wetbar in Media Room: Neil’s suggestion and the clear forerunner in the vote so far. Don’t get me wrong, I love it too, but I could only pick one.

Master Bath: Although it’s considered more of a room than a feature, it is getting a lot of votes for all the “details”.

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I know many of you are dying to know if we finished the home in time for judging. I didn’t mean to make you wait this long to find out, but I ended up taking a few days off to re-charge.

Well, by the skin of our teeth, we finished the home in time.

Yahoo!

When I arrived at the jobsite Wednesday morning there had to have been at least 20 people working in the house. From painters, cleaning crew, plumbers, electricians, powerwashers, cabinet crew, and of course Neil, Jimmy and myself. We even solicited our older boys to help since they were home on Spring Break. I’m going to be honest, there was a lot still to do Wednesday morning and I was nervous. But everyone showed up, everyone worked around each other and by lunch we had it down to about 6-7 people working. By 5pm we had it down to Jimmy, Neil and our boys.

Hmmm, how many people does it take to install one sign???

When I came back to check on things Wednesday night after church service, we were there til 10pm finishing up last minute details. That’s not the way I like to do it, but it seems to be a tradition at this point. It just wouldn’t be Parade of Homes if we actually finished early. But boy, what a difference since last post. I hope if you are reading this, you live close enough to come tour this home in person. Pictures just don’t do it justice. But I’m going to attempt to show you the transformation from my last post to finished project.

Let’s start with my favorite room in the house, the Master Bath. In one week, the bathroom went from this:

to this. . .

Taken Thursday morning

Master shower

Taken Wedn. night

No shower door

What a difference a week makes! Again, my photos don’t do it justice. You physically need to stand in the space to appreciate all the details from the texture of the floor tile to the crystal knobs. It came together beautifully.

Now that’s its finished and we made it time for judging I can share a story. Last post I mentioned a few weeks back I had a week where I was ready to pull my hair out. Well one of the reasons I was so upset on one of my site visits is due to the beautiful light fixture hanging in the middle of the Master Bath. I literally spent hours upon hours looking for the perfect light fixture for that space. It is a 10′ ceiling so I couldn’t install a hanging chandelier, it would have come down too low. Although you see these gorgeous chandeliers hanging over tubs all the time in magazines and on Houzz, in real life, we can’t meet code by hanging fixtures over bathtubs. So I knew I wanted a semi-flush style fixture in the center of the room. This light is not needed functionally, my goal was more aesthetic by tying together the elegance and glamour of the crystal knobs and chrome fixtures. Well, that day when I came to deliver the light fixture personally, my electrican asked me, where is that suppose to go?? I look up at the ceiling and my heart starts to race–the light had never been roughed-in. It was on the electrical plan, but somehow got missed and I never realized that it hadn’t been done until right that minute. So we start talking about what it will take to wire it now that sheetrock and paint have been completed. There was no easy answer. I had closed in all attic access to that spot by adding my bookshelves in the room upstairs. After much deliberation, the only solution was cutting three holes in the ceiling to run a new wire to connect to the existing line. So I have to make a decision. My mind starts racing: I realize I am the only person that knows about this light. It’s not really functional, we don’t need it, there is already plenty of light in the room. We are running out of time, it’s going to be a big headache for everyone– the electricians of course but also scheduling the the drywall and paint back to patch the holes. It will slow everything down and I’m not even sure we can finish on time as is. I leave that day feeling utterly defeated and put the light back in my car and drive home.

Two days go by and I can’t stop thinking about this light. I know that no one will miss it but me, but I keep thinking how it ties everything together, it needs to be in there. So I go to Neil and tell him I want the light wired and installed. What does he do?. . . He gets it done. No complaining, no questions asked, he just makes it happen. And I’m so grateful, because it really does tie the whole space together. Here’s the full view with the light in the picture.

The other space we looked at last post was the Wet Bar area in the Bonus Room. I stressed over that space literally til Wednesday around 5pm, (the day before judging) but it finally came together and turned out incredible.

The Parade committee request each Builder to submit what we feel is our Special Feature for the home. Each price category will be awarded one Special Feature Award. Last year we won the special feature award for our stained ceiling in the Breakfast Nook.

This year, I found it tough to select ONE Best Special Feature in this home, I had several in mind. Next post we will look at the features we were considering and you can vote on which feature you would chose as the winner. You will be able to vote online or in person when you tour the home.

Well, Parade Banquet is tomorrow night (Tuesday) and we find out how we did. Wish us luck. Hopefully by Wednesday, I’ll have some good news to post.

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I just got back from my daily site visit and I am now sitting at my desk staring at my calendar and my facial expression is very similar to this familiar emoji.

I don’t think Neil and I have ever completed a Parade Home early. Every year we seem to be walking out doing last minute details the night before judging and this year looks to be the same. The good news is during my site visit today everything seemed to be going right. That makes for a good day. However, since my last post, there have been some days I was about ready to pull my hair out.

The home has been completely transformed this past month and is really looking good. So many details are coming together and the past few weeks have been extremely important in staying on schedule. Building a custom home on such a tight schedule creates certain challenges. I’ve had to make some adjustments and compromises along the way that I wouldn’t have to do under normal circumstances.

One example of a major adjustment and compromise is the Rec Room. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Neil and I ended up extending the Rec Room from the original plan and it became a nice large space to work with. So we designated the left side of the room to include a Wet Bar and eating area, leaving the rest of the space as an entertainment area. One way I wanted to separate the spaces was by adding a flooring that would work well in an “eating” area. I also wanted the space as a whole to have some added character so my plan was to extend the flooring straight up the bar wall in order to create an accent wall. In order to showcase the accent wall, I decided to delete the upper cabinets in that area and instead install floating shelves. I was very excited about my idea. After exploring several options I ended up choosing a “wood looking” laminate. Here is a picture.

Unfortunately, when the flooring installer called me up and said they would not be able to install the laminate on the wall the way I requested because the cabinet, trim and sloped wall were going to make it too difficult. (I hate when I get those type of phone calls.) So I had to go back to the drawing board, literally. I worked up a new sketch. Instead of running the laminate boards horizontally on the entire wall, I decided to treat it more like a backsplash and turn in vertical and simply stop it at the end of the countertop like we would any backsplash. At the time, Bryant had not made my floating shelves yet, so I had him change the top shelf to straight across the top so we could kill the laminate into the bottom of that shelf. Then, adding two additional, smaller floating shelves with accent lights. This was my new drawing:

Here’s how it’s actually shaping up:

I love it! And I really appreciate Special Effects, Bryant Herring, and Parnell Electric for all working with me and my “out of the box” thinking. It took a team effort but I think the results worked out great. Can’t wait to see it completely finished.

Although I have other stories such as this I could share, I promised you last week we would take a look at one of my favorite spaces within the home. . . The Master Bathroom. I really enjoyed working on this room in the planning stages. However, implementing the plan was much more challenging. Thankfully, we are almost done, and it’s already looking as beautiful as I imagined it. Let’s take a closer look.

Let’s start with layout of the space itself.

As you are walking from the Master Bedroom into the Master Bath, you open up double doors looking straight at this grand free standing tub flanked by two beautiful arched windows. As I think about the design of the space, it starts with the double doors. So I special ordered gorgeous crystal knobs on the double doors because I want you to feel how special this room is before you even walk through the doors. (P.S. If you come by to see the home, be sure to tell Neil how beautiful the door knobs are because he still hasn’t seen how much they cost yet ) As you walk in, we ran the large 12×24 tile in a herringbone pattern drawing your eye toward the tub. I wanted the two vanities to look like furniture pieces and added the wainscoting behind the tub. The accent is a beautiful blend of metallic glass that runs from one side of the room to the other, tying the whole room together. The plumbing fixtures and light fixtures are like the jewelry that complements the outfit.

Here was my concept on paper:

In this situation, it was much easier coming up with the plan than it was implementing the plan. It took a lot of different subcontractors coming in and out one at a time for it all to piece together. It was not easy and I greatly appreciate everyone’s patience.

One last piece to the puzzle was the mirrors. I had originally wanted to purchase decorative mirror for the vanities but quickly realized it was going to be next to impossible to find two mirrors that look the same but different sizes since the two vanities are different sizes. So instead, we framed out the mirrors like we do the windows and had custom mirrors cut. The mirror framing killed into the top trim piece that finished off the 4″ accent. It turned out great, but again, to actually implement that plan took extra effort and skill that I thankfully relied greatly on Jeff and Ayscue’s Trimwork.

Here’s how it’s shaping up:

Looking at these pics you can easily tell there is still ALOT to do! And as I am typing this, the hours are ticking by and my face is starting to look more like this:

As of today, I’ve pretty much done all I can do at this point. Now, I patiently (well I try to be patient) wait and hope everyone shows up and the weather cooperates with final preparations. I’ll let you know next week if we actually made it in time for judging. Meanwhile, be sure to mark your calendars to come see this home in person April 22-23, 29-30, & May 6-7 from 12pm-5pm. Hope to see you there.

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Interior painting has been going on this past week. Which allows me to finally get to talk about my favorite part of the building process and the area I personally have the most control over- color and design. When I refer to having “the most control over” I don’t really have total control. Certainly, I get to chose what I feel will look great but I also have to keep in mind what would appeal to the masses. There have definitely been times when I have absolutely loved something but felt the selection would be too risky and ended up changing the selection to what would appeal to more people. Not to say I’ve got that concept down perfectly, as Neil will attest I end up pushing the envelope sometimes, but for the most part I try to be sensitive to trends as well as what the local market is wanting.

If you have been following along during the building process, I discussed the design of the kitchen in an earlier post. Within that post, I mentioned when designing a new home I like starting in the Kitchen because I feel it is the heart of the home and then work my way out from there. To refresh our memories, here is how the Kitchen will look. (Or you can read here to review the entire article.)

Let’s start this week looking at the two rooms adjacent to the Kitchen. The Powder Room and the Laundry Room. These two rooms may seem secondary at first thought, but in reality, the Powder Room will be the most visible bathroom guests will use, so it’s an important space. In this homeplan, I actually have a good size space to work with. In this situation, I chose the cabinet style first. I wanted a “furniture style” vanity but left the color undecided at this point.

Next, I chose the flooring. A lot of times in Powder Rooms I simply carry the hardwood flooring into the space. However, in this situation, when I went to the tile showroom I fell in love with a wood plank type tile that I wanted to use somewhere. Since this Powder Room is pretty good in size at 8′ long, I decided to use this tile in the Powder. I knew I wanted to add beadboard wainscoting on the walls. While looking at tile I had found some beautiful penny round tile that I loved and looked beautiful with the woodplank tile. So I decided to add the pennyrounds into the trim design. Once these two colors came together it was easy for me to decide on a Charcoal stain color for the vanity. Here’s what it looks like together.

The light fixture, plumbing fixture and upgraded toilet helps pull this room together creating a space any guest would love.

Final decision was paint color: Silverplate by Sherwin Williams 7649

Positioned right across from the Powder Room is the Laundry Room. Personally, I always try to put a lot of thought and color into the Laundry Room. I’m a mother of three active boys and spend a lot of time doing laundry. So I want this space to not only be functional but pleasant. For this home, the first selection was the tile. During a previous visit to Triangle Tile & Stone with a client I had seen a new display of tile that I loved. I knew I wanted to incorporate it somewhere, and decided the Laundry room would be the perfect place. The pictures of this tile doesn’t do it justice, it looks so much prettier in person. But here is a photo of the tile in the store.

I chose a pretty shade of blue-gray for the cabinet color (shown in the picture above) which coordinates beautifully with the floor. I wanted this space to be very functional by adding cabinets and a hanging bar above the washer/dryer side along with a white quartz countertop and laundry sink. The area beside the laundry sink will be one open shelf to fit two laundry baskets.

On the other wall, I wanted to incorporate a “Dropzone” area for bookbags, shoes, coats, etc. plus a Mail Center and Broom closet. Here’s the layout. I did tweak the drawing by making the Mail Center the same size as the Broom Closet.

Added two pendant light fixtures

Wall color:

Seeing how it’s all coming together almost makes me want to do a load of laundry, well maybe not, but I am super excited about this space and can’t wait to see it finished. Join me next week when we look at one of my favorite areas. . . the Master Suite.

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I’ve been visiting the jobsite almost daily now. So much is happening now that it’s best to keep an eye on everything as it happens because we have no time for delays at this point. Plus, it’s fun to watch the transformation from day to day.

Since my last post, sheetrock was completed and hardwood floors installed. Tile install began and is looking great, but will hold that subject til next post.

Last week the exterior stone install began and is really looking good. I have never used this exact stone color and style so I was a little anxious to see how it was going to turn out. It’s sometimes daunting to make a prominent selection based off a small 16”x16” sample. I watched in awe as the stone installers studied and worked the space with the pieces they had before them. It’s especially challenging to install a fieldstone pattern because the shapes are irregular. It almost requires an artisan to install fieldstone well, and I commend our guys for taking the time to do a good job.

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While stone was going up on the exterior, the interior trim guys have been hard at work cutting trim boards for all the windows and door frames, coffered ceilings, wainscoting, and my accent wall for the Dining Room. Before the trim guys come out, I spend time in the office studying the plans and thinking through each room. With my notes and pictures in hand, I meet onsite with Neil and Jeff Ayscue with Ayscue’s Trimwork.

I’m going to be honest, I’m not much better at knowing all the trim lingo now than I did 10 years ago. I still get confused knowing the difference between basecap and cove mold. For some reason, my brain just doesn’t store it. However, it doesn’t stop me from thinking up plenty of wonderful ideas and I can trust Jeff to take those ideas and make them happen.

When we purchase interior doors, they come with the trim already attached. Most suppliers stock a few styles such as 1×4 or #470, or #445.

#445 door trim

1×4 door trim

For this home, I wanted to stick with the 1×4 (straight line, simple) style trim around the windows and doors. I think it lends itself well to the overall feel of the interior style. We add two additional pieces of molding at the top to finish the look.

One challenge with the 1×4 style, is how to trim out Arched Windows. One of the features of this home I love is the beautiful arched windows. To accommodate the arch, a special flexible cove mold is needed to finish out the top trim piece.

This home has 10’ ceilings down and 8’ up. So downstairs we are using a solid core 8’ tall door and standard 6’8” hollow doors upstairs. Using 8’ solid core does limit the style choices a bit more but there are still several nice styles to choose from. Since I want to emphasize the arched detail throughout the home and I am using beadboard in several areas, I thought this door style was a perfect fit.

We are using 7 1/8″ wide baseboard and 2-piece crown in the ceilings. When considering crown moldings and other trim options, builders are often at the mercy of the suppliers and what they stock. Stock items can be ordered on Monday and arrive onsite Tuesday. I’ve learned the hard way, to stray from what the suppliers stock will end up costing three times more and take twice as long to get.

Dining Room- In the last post, I gave three layout options for the dining room wall. After discussing with Jeff and Neil, we all agreed upon “option 2” using 1×4 plus Window Stop to soften the edge just a bit. When hardwoods were installed, we decided to add a decorative border along the perimeter and we turned the interior floor boards on a diagonal. It turned out great and I wanted to hint at that decorative border on the ceiling so we added a subtle basecap molding.

Study: added Coffer Ceiling

Closets have customized wood shelving designed for best use of each space.

Master Bath: added wainscoting going from corner to corner acting as the backsplash for the freestanding tub with an accent band. Since my vanities are two different sizes, I found it difficult to find store-bought mirrors, therefore, we are installing trim similar to the windows and having mirrors cut and installed afterward.

Stairway railings and balusters.

Bedroom 4: I want to backtrack a minute and look behind the scenes a bit for this Bedroom. This home plan was originally drawn like this.

As soon as it was framed, Neil and I stood in the space and immediately wanted to make that room more efficient. We removed the framing for the walls facing the rear dormer and pushed it back as far as we could. Then we removed the currently framed closet and set it into the dead space beside the bathroom. In order to utilize some of the deadspace adjacent to the closet, we created a recessed niche with a flush door to give more storage space. We added a window seat in the side dormer flanked by two recessed book shelves. These changes transformed this previously 12×10 room into a 15×15 room. This is what the room looks like now:

During framing we also added a full height access door to a large walk- in attic space through BR 2’s closet and another access door from the Rec room to access another floored attic space.

When I visited Saturday morning, cabinets installation was underway.

Join me next time when we take a closer look at how the selections and colors start coming together from a Designer perspective.

Rough-in Challenges Creates More Changes

As soon as I finished my last post, Neil and I headed out to the jobsite to meet with all our Rough-in Crews. Rough-ins are all the internal workings of the home such as Electrical, HVAC, & Plumbing. As we were discussing the kitchen layout, we ran into a bit of a snag- we realized there was no easy way to vent out for the Hood Vent at its current location. That meant moving the cooktop all together. Neil’s immediate solution was move it to the Island. But my immediate response in my brain was “not in my beautiful island!”. However, after exhausting all other options, I started to open up to the idea and low and behold it actually made more sense to me once I got over the initial shock of having to rework my kitchen layout again. Another example of how things can seem good on paper but not necessary will work in the field. I am actually excited about the new layout. I think the overall flow and function of the kitchen now works better than the way we originally had in the last post (click here for a look back at last post).

Here’s the new layout.

Cooktop is now located in Island with a Downdraft retractable vent

We moved refrigerator to wall on right and got rid of any concern of opening the refrigerator doors against the pantry wall.

Wall ovens are now moved beside the pantry wall and are a better proximity and use of space to the sink and cooktop.

Although having to mentally accept having to change the kitchen layout at the last minute wasn’t ideal, things like this happen quite frequently while building a new home, especially a new plan. We try to plan for all scenarios, but until you get into the field you learn that things have to be changed sometimes to work. Being flexible and open minded during the building process helps alleviate a lot of stress.

The house has now been roughed-in and cabinet drawings approved and in production, so no more changes in the Kitchen. (Whew!) So let’s move on to the Foyer and Dining Room.

As I mentioned last post, the overall style and selections in the Kitchen will help dictate the look and finishes when making selections for the adjacent areas in the home. My goal is to be deliberate in creating each area into its own space while keeping a consistent flow and overall feel.

Let’s begin in the Foyer. When standing in the the Foyer, even at framing stage, you get a sense of its “wow” factor. Not only is it a two-story ceiling but it’s also vaulted. The stairway is open the entire way up and beautifully flairs out at the bottom. For such a grand space, the light fixture needs to be large. My goal is to find a fixture that is somewhere around 40″x 30″. I mentioned in my last post how much I love light fixtures. Well until I move forward with my dream of owning my own lighting store one day, I rely on Carla with Lights Unlimited to guide me in the right direction. And on more than one occasion I think we’ve had every lighting catalog in the store out of her desk trying to find just the right fixture.

Hard day at work

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to work with someone like Carla who can take my ideas and style and guide me to the best options within my price range. And when I say price range, believe me, Neil keeps me on a budget so sometimes I have to be very creative to get what I want. Having to work on a budget is not always easy, but over time I’ve created a “per room” budget I try to stay within. For a house this size, we’ve allocated $6,000 total for light fixtures (doesn’t include the recessed trims). I haven’t finalized all the lights for this house yet, so we will see at the end how close I come.

Since I’ve started the Kitchen in Chrome and therefore going with chrome door hardware throughout the home, I am looking for a finish that will look good with chrome. After spending some time looking, the size I want narrows the search down quickly. I came up with these options as my favorite contenders.

I keep these Foyer options close by and start looking for a Dining Room fixture. When planning for the Dining Room I usually add some wainscoting on the walls and/or a decorative ceiling of some sort such as a coffer or tray. Here’s a few examples of some of my favorite past Dining Rooms:

Jarman Homes

Jarman Homes

Jarman Homes

Jarman Homes

Jarman Homes

However, when I stand in this Dining Room space I notice a few things- the Dining Room only has only one solid wall. The other wall is mostly windows and the rest is completely open with one column supporting the corner. The room is pretty large and rectangular in shape, therefore that one solid wall is long and big. So as I stand in the space staring at that long wall, I immediately want to turn that wall into the accent of the room. By using color and trimwork detail I plan to transform that wall into the focal point of the room. Since the wall will be the focal point, I’ve decided NOT to do a coffer ceiling but install a big, beefy, crown to give it a nice finished look.

Now, I start looking for the right light fixture. I found three Chandeliers in the chrome family I really like. I start considering the size of that wall again and feel it may be best to break that wall up in thirds and add two decorative sconce lights. So I take my three favorite chandelier choices and see if they have coordinating sconces.

Now that I have the fixtures, I mock up three wall layouts for the trimwork design for that accent wall.

The accent colors I’m considering:

Now that I have my chrome Dining Room fixtures confirmed I go back to the Foyer light. There is one more factor to take into account regarding the Foyer fixture. The stairway look. One option is to go with black wrought iron balusters or I can go with straight, clean line, white wood balusters. Here’s two examples:

wood baluster option

iron baluster option

I think both looks would look nice in this situation. However, because of the “grandness” of this space through the height of the ceiling and the curve of the stairs at the entrance, I feel the black wrought iron would complement the look best. Since the balusters are going to be black iron, I’m drawn to the large open lantern fixture that is combining the black iron with the chrome candlesticks and feel it will be the perfect compromise for this space. The size is great, and it’s a great price for the size.

I submitted our Parade of Homes Entry form and fee last week, so its official, we can’t back out now. Shingles, Siding, Insulation and the Front doors have been installed and Sheetrock is currently underway. Things are moving quickly and I can’t wait to show you what I’ve got planned for the bathrooms!

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Countdown to Parade of Homes series: Interior Selections begin

I start this post with a lot of excitement. A lot has happened since my last post. Being a small business like ours, Neil and I have to wear many hats. Other than designer, one of my many hats is Marketing Director. During December and early January there are several marketing and personal relations tasks that demand my attention. One such task is finding a way to THANK the many people that have helped make our year a success. This year we gave a gift and a Year in Review card I created and mailed to clients, prospective clients, and the many business partners we count on every day. We have spent 16 years building long term business and personal relationships that help us continue to build our company. Maintaining long term relationships in this industry is not always an easy thing to do and we never take that for granted.

(Putting my “designer hat” back on) In my last post, framing had just started. Neil and I walked the home last week and while the windows were being installed. If you have ever gone through the actual process of building a new home, you realize this is an exciting time. I love getting to this point and standing in the space and realizing first hand all the potential this home can be. This particular floorplan has arched windows throughout and even though it is just at framing stage, the home is already showing signs of its future beauty.

Kitchen/Nook Area windows

Now that we have entered January, we are reminded that a Spring Parade of Homes can be tough on builders because of weather. Neil and I were both born and raised in North Carolina and one of the reasons we love it here is for its relatively mild weather throughout the year. You never know what you will get from Monday to Friday. Last week was a perfect example of that with snow and freezing rain to start the week and mid 60’s to finish out the week. Unfortunately, NC doesn’t react quickly to snow and ice. Our schools and businesses shut down and we didn’t leave our home for three days. Bad weather can really make it tough to stay on schedule. Thankfully, the home was 95% under roof, so it could have been worse, but for sure, we can use some cooperating weather for the next three months if we have any chance of making our April 13th deadline.

While Neil has been busy watching over the construction side of things, I have been busy meeting with our Custom Cabinet guy, visiting the tile, plumbing, and lighting showrooms, and local granite yards. One great perk about my job is I get to spend hours looking at resources like Houzz and Pinterest on my iPad and when Neil asks what I’m doing I can honestly say I’m working. 😉 As a professional, it’s important to use these resources as “inspiration” rather than being a “copycat.” When I work with clients I enjoy seeing their idea boards; it helps me understand their personality and style. However, I also try to make sure my clients have realistic expectations early on by explaining that most of the pictures seen on Houzz are professional photographs from professionally designed and decorated homes worth millions of dollars. They are not the average home within our average client’s price range. Therefore, using these resources are great, as long as everyone has realistic expectations on how they can be best used when designing a new custom home or remodel.

Once I’ve spent some time thinking through my overall concept and feel of a home, I usually begin with the Kitchen and work out from there. I like starting in the Kitchen whether I’m helping a presale client or designing a spec home because I feel the Kitchen is the heart of the home where most of the family’s time will be spent. It is here that the overall feel and style of the home would naturally resonate. I started by meeting with Bryant Herring with Herring Cabinets. We have been using Bryant for several years now. What I like about Bryant is he can build just about anything I come up with. As long as I give him a sketch or a picture of a concept, he can work with me on achieving the exact look I’m going for. You simply can’t do that that with a manufactured cabinet company. I will admit, a challenge in using Bryant is he does not have a big, fancy showroom for clients to come in and choose one cabinet style from another, but I feel the benefits of his quality in addition to my freedom to customize at every step strongly outweighs the need for a fancy showroom where every time you want to make a change or add something it’s considered an “upgrade”. Our clients really haven’t missed having a showroom when they can sit down and design their custom Kitchen just the way they want.

For this floor plan, the Kitchen has actually been more challenging than I originally thought. There are some great features to this Kitchen, however, the overall way the Kitchen spreads out in a large space, I’ve had to really think through how to maximize it’s functionality. Standing in the space really helps get a feel for the layout and function far more than just looking at a plan. As Neil, Bryant, and I stood in the space we went back and forth looking at different options. In the end, we made the following changes to the original plan:

I moved the wall ovens away from the cooktop wall. We are going to either use a slide in range or I’m going to combine the cooktop and oven into the same space and butt that area out a bit from the rest of the cabinet. I’m going to attempt to add narrow spice rack pullouts on each side to add additional separation. I’ve added a pot filler since the sink is on the other side of the kitchen.

We decided to square off the refrigerator wall and move the microwave beside the refrigerator.

We couldn’t shrink or move the pantry location because it hides a major support beam. Therefore, I plan to turn that Pantry door into a prominent design feature.

This plan has a gorgeous arched window right above the sink. I love it! However, a window takes away cabinet space. Therefore, we are going to build a continuous cabinet arched around the window.

The dishwasher will be on the right of the sink and a hidden trash pullout will be on the left.

The Island is my favorite part of this Kitchen. We tweaked the size from the original plan and added a hangover area for bar seating. I removed the small island sink because I feel they are so small they aren’t very functional, plus the plumbing would take up an entire section of storage I would rather have.

Another great feature of this Kitchen is the narrow but spacious Pantry Cabinet on the Powder Room wall. This is a great way to utilize that space. I’ve designed this cabinet to look like an actual antique pantry cabinet I remember in Neil’s grandmother’s Kitchen. This piece will be very functional but also a statement piece.

Now that we’ve talked through the layout, Bryant sends me drawings I can revise and start adding the special details that will make this Kitchen unique and special. Here are some of my notes that I mark up and give back to Bryant to make revisions and start building.

My next step is selecting cabinet colors and granite. I already have concepts in my head before I head to the granite yard, but I take my Cabinet paint fan with me so I can keep an open mind when I see a slab I really like, I can change the color right there on the spot.

If you have never been to a granite yard, it’s like going on a museum field trip and getting the opportunity to see God’s artistry at work. I love walking down the aisles of these huge canvases of natural beauty. The Raleigh-Durham area has many granite yards to visit. Most use a color code system that helps you understand the cost of one slab over the other. I always stay away from Red & Orange stickers (referred to as level 4 & 5) and look for blue and green stickers (level 1 & 2). Different levels can translate into thousands of dollars. A good rule of thumb is for one average size kitchen, you can add at least a $1,000 per level. So if my level 1 kitchen came to $2,500, then the level 5 granite for the same kitchen would be around $6,500. Granite has really come a long way in just a few years. About 10 years ago, there were only a handful of level 1 granite options and you saw the same five options in almost every home. But today, granite has become so popular and more readily available, the options have really opened up.

As I walked around the granite yard and my fabricator’s warehouse, I chose Delicatus Cream. (This photo taken with my phone doesn’t do it justice, it’s gorgeous)

I have decided to go with granite on both the perimeter and island for this kitchen. I have a lot of different design elements going on in this kitchen already. I didn’t want to change the island granite to a different granite choice or a wood species. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love a wood island countertop. In fact, the last home we built I used a Black Walnut top for the island and it was stunning (pictured below). The kitchen needed some warmth; this kitchen has enough going on I feel keeping the same granite countertops work best this time.

Black Walnut Island

Affirmed Plan Kitchen

Before I could finalize my kitchen design thoughts, I made a trip to the plumbing and lighting showroom to start piecing the overall look and feel of the kitchen. One thing I knew for sure- I wanted a farmhouse sink.

In last year’s Parade Home I used a Kohler Farmhouse sink. I had originally ordered a white sink and designed the kitchen with that particular sink. However, when I called to schedule a delivery date for the kitchen, I found out that there was a backorder on the sink and there was no date on when one would be available. So I had kitchen cabinets that were scheduled to be installed the following week and they were built around the exact dimensions of that particular sink. The showroom researched different vendors but no other sink could be found with the exact dimensions. They called around all over the country and tracked down two sinks that were the same model just a different color. One of the two colors was called Cashmere (pictured below). I grabbed my samples and drove straight to the showroom to take a look at the color. It was dead on perfect with my granite and backsplash I had already ordered. My 48 hour stress turned into a blessing. The sink ended up being one of my favorite sinks I’ve ever used. Situations such as the backordered-sink dilemma translates into just “another day” in the home building industry. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of new examples to share with you along the journey of this home.

My current plumbing showroom has a beautiful white farm sink that is being discontinued; therefore, they are selling me that sink for about half the cost of my usual budget. Yeah! A quality white farmhouse sink we usually budget $800-1000. For a good quality stainless we give an allowance of $600. I realize you can go online to some “sinkwarehouse” type company and get one for much less, but from a builder standpoint, that means trouble. Half the time, important components are missing or if anything is wrong with it at all, it causes headaches and delays. I’m all for saving money, but ordering from a website that we can’t exchange the product easily is not worth the risk.

The next piece to this puzzle is lighting. I absolutely love lighting. The perfect lighting fixture is like the jewelry with a nice outfit, just ties it all together and helps give a nice finished look. I spend hours on lighting for each project–I take it very seriously. The challenge for this house wasn’t that I couldn’t find the right lights, but it was that I fell in love with two totally different looks. The bigger challenge is each look is different enough that it will totally affect the corresponding look in the Foyer and Dining. From the time you walk through the front door, I want the lights and overall feel of the home to work harmoniously with one another, especially in an open floorplan such as this where multiple spaces converge into one another. Therefore, each look in the kitchen led to its own specific look in the Foyer and Dining. However, I’m quickly running out of time and need to make a decision so what do I do??? Well, I phoned a friend that I trust will give me their honest opinion. Just talking through the two scenarios out loud helped me make the decision for this home and getting a second opinion helped clinch it. I’ll happily save Option B as a possibility for a future home.

Regarding this home, let’s break apart these design elements a bit so you can get a feel for where this kitchen is headed.

Rough-ins began today! Beforehand, Neil and I spent an hour creating the Lighting Plan. I’m heading out there now to walk and confirm a few things and make sure our proposed electrical plans make sense while standing in the space. I can’t wait to share with you next time how some of the other spaces are coming along. If you want to make sure you don’t miss any posts from this series, be sure to “follow”. I have been enjoying your feedback, so keep it up and feel free to share this blog series with others.